from Perth to Darwin-1

Hello everybody.

It is quite difficult to make time to tell you about my last 3,5 weeks. I am now in Darwin, and since it is nice and warm here (read: too hot for me!) the town is full of backpackers. Everybody wants to use internet so it's busy everywhere. I will probably write this blogpost from Darwin, Cairns and Townsville- where I will probably once you read this. I am flying to Cairns tomorrow (1 september) and i will travel then to Townsville where I will meet Mark and Clarissa (my cousin and his girlfriend) and my uncle and aunt! Oh yes, Leanne, my friend from Maastricht, will also be there.. great!

START
So, where to start? Well, last time I mentioned that Mark and I were travelling to Perth by bus. We actually ended up staying in Freemantle, a small little town just outside of Perth with a bit of a bohemian-flavour to it. Actually, there is a very nice little museum there with the wreckage of 4 Dutch VOC (east indies company) schips, among them the Batavia- it sunk not far from Perth. Really cool was the collection of old maps on which Australia was named "new holland".

TRANSPORT
I was thinking about buying some kind of vehicle (car/van) to travel north, but that turned out to be such a hussle (paperwork, looking for a vehicle, checking it mechanically, etc.) that Mark and me decided to rent a campervan. We made some serious budget-calculations and in the end it proved to be not only a nicer option to travel than bus+hostells, but also a cheaper option. So, we picked our little van [the flowrider] up on the morning of 7 august and headed off north.

For me it was the first time driving on the left side of the road, and in a car with the steeringwheel on the right side... quiet an experience: putting on the window-wipers when you want to use the turning-blinkers or slamming your arm really hard into the door on your right when you want to change gears... By the way, I had to do all the driving (at least some 5000km we calculated) because Mark's driverslicence had expired a while ago!

SICK
In Freemantle I had cought a small cold, since everybody in the hostells was having some form of sneez (or "the sniffies") it was just a matter of time before you catch it yourself in one of the dormrooms. So, for a couple of days I had a small fever and sore thoath and running nose. When we left with the van this was still the case, that is why you can see me in the first pictures still with my jacket and sweater and even scarf!

PINNACLE DESERT
The first thing we went to see was the Pinnacles Desert. We had seen many pictures of it and expected huge rockformations, but they turned out to be more of a human scale. It was however quite a magical place. And although it seems very sunny, the first week driving daytime temperatures were not higher then maybe 20c. The first nights each of us actually slept in 2 sleepingbags!

KALBARRI
The next day we drove to Kalbarri, a small seaside village in the Kalbarri National Park. The coastline featured many interesting CLIFFS and sealife (dolphins, dudongs, whales and sharks). Inland the park had a couple of beautifull gorges. We decided to do an 8km walk in one of the gorges, but we could only reach it by driving trough the desert for 1 hour on a sandy dirtroad. About half way we were stopped by a tourgroup (tourists) taking pictures of an ECHYDNA. This is a sort of ant-eating "stekelvarken" that is actually closely related to a Platypus (vogelbekdier). It had crossed the dirtroad just before the bus of tourist had arrived but was now really scared and digging itself into the sand. The tour guide told people to stand back so the Echydna would come out again but some people just kept on going to close so we all just gave up after a while and continued our journey (some people just blow it for everybody).

The gorge was really in the middle of the desert. So nice, barren desert landscape for miles and miles in all directions, and then there is suddenly this green artery with different plants, annimals and landscape... really great. It was very calm there aswell; not mny tourist did the 8km WALK, so we had the 'path' just for ourselves. Path was however quite a big word... there were just some peggs every couple of hundred meters, and the route in between you just had to find yourself. Some parts of the path involved CLIMBING over the rocks along the river.. really cool. And (we guess because it was so calm) we have come across quite a few KANGAROOS... very beautifull big wild animals.

KANGAROOS
On the way out of the park, on the sandy dirtroad, we almost hit a couple of Kangaroos aswell... these silly fellas all just pop up when the sun goes down and all just try to commit suicide! They really jump towards the car when you pass... really strange, they seem curious and not aware that it is actually dangerous for them. But luckily I didnt hit them.

STROMATALITES
The next day we continued our trip up north. I was starting to feel better and also the temperatures were rising. We were going to two BAYS called "sharkbay national park". I think we were about 800km north of Perth now. And highways in this part of Australia (actually all roads between Perth and Darwin) are just 1 lane roads (one up and one down), which makes travelling not very fast. Also we had to keep an eye on our fuel-budget so we didnt drive faster than 100km/hour. In the south of one of the two bays we visited a magical place. In the shallow waters Stromatalites live: these are the most ancient LIFEFORMS on the earth. It's single-cellular life, that builds up into rocky formations. They have been arround for 2,5 billion years (earth is about 4,5billion years old) and were responsible for building up most of the oxygen in the atmosphere so that more complex life-forms could emerge (1 to 1,5 billion years later). I had read about these lifeforms in a book by Fridjoff Capra called 'web of life' and here at Sharkbay is one of only 2 places in the world where these lifeforms still exist. And for most it doesnt look very special, "just some rocks".

But the place itself was very MAGIC! It was warm and very silent.. the water was very clear and shallow, and the clouds in the sky seemed so low we could almost touch them... it seemed like i was dreaming... the light was so soft, the sounds of the sea seemed very far away or almost fake, everything seemed to pass in slowmotion. Amazing.

SHARKBAY
We stayed in Denham, a small touristy village in the national park where we saw a very nice sundown on the beach where two girls were taking a brave bath in the sea (sharks-stingers-jellyfish-coldwater). Next day we spent doing laundry, shopping and driving around a bit. Denham was not a very spectacular place, although we visited a nice blue LAGOON a bit inland from Denham that was stunningly beautifull. A little sign there said: "hotspring" so we set out to go find it. While walking around the circular lagoon we thought several times of diving in, figuring that the lagoon being locked off from the sea couldnt be housing in dangerous things from the sea. But when we got to 1/3 of the roundtrip we read a little sign saying: "do not swim, dangerous Stonefish inhabit these waters". Thank god we didnt go in! These are very well camouflaged fish nasty fish that have a couple of spikes on their back that simply kill...

CAMPING
The next morning we had a chat with the two brave girls who turned out to be French and German. They were doing the same trip as us in the same timespan, so we figured we'd meet them again later (and we would).

After that we drove north and planned to stay on a FREE CAMPSITE along the highway that evening. Since distances are so big between villaes in Westarn Australia, along the highway rest-area's are provided where you can camp one night for free. It was beautifully located near a (now dry) riverbed. Here very rudimentary toilets are provided, however a shower is not.

Mark went to look for firewood, but put on gloves, which seemed very wise with all the spiders and snakes in this country. Soon thereafter a caravan parked, a door opened, trhee little children jumped out and starting playing everywhere: in the bushes, in the dry-riverbed, even along the little remaining pools in the riverbed (crocodiles?)... haha.. Mark looked rather silly with his gloves on!

We build a nice campfire there and started cooking. Soon thereafter two other guys (german and irish, our age) arrived with a campervan. We chatted a bit and the invited us to come sit at their table (which was lit by a nice bug-repelling candle) to eat our dinner. So we did and chatted a bit. Later on, one of them tried to blow out the candle, which didnt work, so the German guy said: I`ll do it, blew very hard, and before I knew it I was fully covered in red candle-wax, even in my hair and eyes. It was spilled over my favorite jeans and t-shit.. sucker! So stupid. I have never heard any "sorry" for that. It sucked, blew my evening. I have carried the jeans around till now (i am writing this in Townsville) to take it to a dry-cleaner, but just found out that I have lost the jeans somewhere (left it in a hostell somewhere I guess)... FUCK! Probably better to have gotten rid of this bad-luck item, but I really regret to have lost this nice jeans... stupid German 'dude'!

The freecampsite was great however, so we decided to do this more often (without anoying visitors).

CORAL BAY
The next day we drove on to Coral Bay. We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (steenbokskeerkring), so we were finally really getting north and into warmer weather. Coral Bay was again a touristy village in the middle of nowhere, on the Southern tip of Ningaloo Reef National Park, which is famous for it`s abundant sealife. The village comprises not much more than a little harbour, two caravan parks, a backpackers (hostell) and a hotel-com-pub-com-restaurant-com-bottleshop.

Immediately we went to hire some snorkeling gear. Coral Bay is a small bay protected from the sea by a large coral-reef. This means relatively safe SNORKELING since most sharks, stingers (rays), jelly fish etc. stay outside in the ocean. The people renting us the snorkeling gear were very nice so we chatted a bit and found out that they also offered outer-reef tours to go see sharks, the outer reef, dolphins, turtles, Whales and swim with Manta Rays on a small boat. It immediately felt right so we booked a tour (about 100euro for half a day). But first we went for some snorkeling on our own.

As soon as I put my head under, I couldnt believe what I was seeing! It is an entirely different planet there... unbelievable. SO many fish! In all colours and shapes, big and small.. amazing. And the CORAL, like big surrealalist forrests, going on for miles! Greenish, purple-ish, brownish, reddish, blue-ish, big leaves, small leaves, spikes, sponges, sea-cewcumbers, stars, etc. Just simply amazing! The water was however quite cold (20c), so we had to go back to the beach every 45min to dry and warm-up again. Late in the afternoon, just before sunset, just before getting out of the water I encountered a beautifull little ray (rog in Dutch)... about 80cm wide, gliding through the water, with a very long, whip-like tail. And just a bit further a white one, hoovering over the sand on the bottom. And when I got out, and walked trough the shallow water, another white one flashed by, gliding over the white-sand. Such amazing creatures (however, these can also be quite dangerous, especially when stepped on they can strike you with their sting- these actually killed Steve Erwin, the Crocodile Hunter).

BOAT
The next morning we went on the boat-trip. It was really great: just 9 people on the boat, a very enthausiastic and smart crew (an older skipper and a young girl). We were supposed to go from 9 'till 14hrs, but arrived back ashore around 1630h. Really, we hit the jackpot it seems.

On the tour we saw some sharks (smaller ones), more and bigger corals and fish, followed a mother-humbackwhale with her calf and a young feemale humpbackwhale for 1,5 hours, saw the mother feed the calf (from afar), the calf going crazy which meant; jumping out of the water and splashing like a dolphin about 20 times, and even the big mama do it 3 times, some more sharks and coral-reef snorkeling and the hightlight of the day: a big manta-ray.

We were going quite close to the beach with th eboat for an hour, and just when I thought we wouldn't find a Manta today, the guide-girl told us to put on our gear and stand on the steel-rack on the back of the boat and prepare to glide in, as quitely as possible. When we did it, I looked down and immediately saw a huge black SHADOW appearing in the sandy but quite clear water. It was about 3 meters deep here, and the big Manta-Ray appeared just under me... so amazing!! I could see every little detail.. her eyes, her guils (kiewen), the accompanying fish that clean here parasites, just everything! SO AMAZING! She glided so quitely trough the water, slowly plapping her wings like a giant bird... slowly filtering the seawater trough her mouths and guils to extract the plankton from the water. While we swam along, just 2-2,5m above her, she made a big very slow gliding turn, and came back... we swam along again. The beautifull animal was swimming towards the beach, back and forth, since the waves of the shore mixed the plankton very well... at least 15minutes the 3,5m wide MANTA wasn't bothered by us and just kept on swimming up and down. It absolutely blew my mind. Such an amazing experience. But then, as quick as it had come, it turned around and took of. Swoosh, gone. So incredibly fast as it could move! A-MA-ZING!!

This is why I came to Australia.. what an experience. I`ll for shure never ever forget that.


PS1 PICTURES you can find in the 'my photos' link on the right side
PS2 REMAINING STORY belonging to the rest of pictures will follow